Economic Aspects of "Love"

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Fri Nov 09, 2012 6:36 pm

American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Sun Nov 11, 2012 8:01 pm

Image

How The Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev.

242 pages 14.3mb, now in pdf form.

http://jroan.com/HtIBWhite.pdf
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Sun Nov 11, 2012 8:05 pm

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/20 ... on-primer/

A Gender and Sexual Orientation Primer
by Lisa Wade, PhD

Image

Wanna get clear on the relationship between sex, gender identity, sexual and romantic orientation, sexual behavior, and gender role? Watch this video by the Vlog Brothers, sent in by Jeffrey B.:

American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:37 pm

Soldier, We Love You

American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Tue Nov 13, 2012 3:22 pm

If one becomes somewhat savvy about one’s love — ‘ah, yes, there goes my love again, what will it bring forth this time? What havoc will it wreak?’ — does this mean that one ceases to doubt it, or that one knows it with certainty for all time? Or is this the distance that one takes from what one cannot do, an instance of the doubt that goes along with love? We might think Freud is saying that to doubt one’s own love is to doubt it in a very fundamental way, to call the most important matters into questions, and to not let assumptions go unquestioned. It is, in a way, to become philosophical in and about one’s passions. And this does not mean that one ceases to live them or that one kills them by thinking them into the ground. on the contrary, one lives them, and seeks to know them, but only by bringing one’s questions into the practice of love itself. I cannot pretend to know myself at the moment of love, but I cannot pretend to fully know myself. I must neither vacate the knowledge that I have — the knowledge, after all, that will make me a better lover — and I cannot be the one who knows everything in advance — which would make me proud and, finally, lovable. Love always returns us to what we do and do not know. We have no other choice than to become shaken by doubt, and to persist with what we can know when we can know it.

--Judith Butler
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Tue Nov 13, 2012 3:58 pm

You, who are so liberal and so humane, who have such an exaggerated adoration of culture that it verges on affectation, you pretend to forget that you own colonies and that in them men are massacred in your name.

— Jean-Paul Sartre, preface to ‘The Wretched of the Earth’
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:09 pm

Image
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Wed Nov 14, 2012 9:17 pm

http://www.thenewsignificance.com/2012/ ... d-fascism/

Chris Spannos: Greece Between Austerity and Fascism

November 5th, 2012

Source: The Indypendent

By Chris Spannos:


Image

ATHENS, Greece — The European Union has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. But it is today’s Greek anti-fascist movement that deserves an award for doing what European states have so far failed to do — confronting the rise of violent neo-Nazi movements on the continent.

Although fascism is not new in Greece, it has seen a resurgence in the Golden Dawn party, which won 18 parliamentary seats in the last election. Some polls indicate that approximately half of Greek police support Golden Dawn and that the party enjoys legitimacy in wide social circles. Police sometimes even refer crime victims to Golden Dawn for follow-up on law enforcement and citizen protection.

Rising poverty and political instability have caused turmoil. Hostility towards foreigners has also been on the increase, helping the party achieve its growing popular support. Greece has experienced record-breaking job losses, with the official unemployment rate currently at 25 percent. More than half (54 percent) of workers 18 to 30 are unemployed. Countless more are underemployed. Mandatory military service provides a significant, albeit temporary, release valve for many youth who would otherwise also be unemployed.

The unemployment statistics do not, of course, reflect the hidden suffering of many more. Greece is a gateway for refugees and undocumented migrants making their way to Western Europe; they are not counted in the official statistics.

Playing on real social anxieties and insecurities, Golden Dawn has managed to carve out a leadership role for itself, in large part by terrorizing the country’s weak and vulnerable and turning them into scapegoats for current social and economic woes. Golden Dawn MPs are known for their violent outbursts of public rage against immigrants and political opponents. Recently a friend came to me in shock after he was forced to leave the theater hosting the Athens premiere of Terrence McNally’s play Corpus Christi (depicting Jesus as gay), which was shut down because of Golden Dawn protests outside. Upon leaving the theater he was confronted by two of the party’s MPs and more than 100 of their supporters, including priests brandishing crosses — all hurling homophobic insults at those attending the play.

Center-right prime minister Antonis Samaras has cited Golden Dawn’s ascendance as evidence that Greece could suffer the same rise in Nazism as Germany’s Weimar Republic did in the 1930s after economic collapse. He has also said that he would not ban the party from participating in the electoral system. But many Greeks are concerned about the party’s rise and express a need to do something about it.

“It is in everyone’s mind to fight back against Golden Dawn but nobody was doing it,” said one participant in a recent anti-fascist patrol. “We fought back and now people know that they can, too.” This man participated in a brigade of 70-80 motorcycles, each carrying two riders and baseball-bat-sized poles flying red-and-black flags. The purpose of the brigade was to shake Golden Dawn’s confidence that it is above the law and to show the world that a number of people are committed to the fight against fascism in Greece. This patrol is just one of many different kinds of anti-fascist actions that are occurring more frequently around the country but have not yet reached a
critical mass.

“Everyone is fighting for control over space,” explained another anti-fascist activist. “Imagine a square. Everyone is fighting for their share of space in this square. We cannot let the fascists gain any of that space because if they do they will take more.”

But the fascists have already won some level of state power. “Hitler first won the streets and then he won in the parliament,” he said. “Golden Dawn has won in parliament but not yet on the streets. So we must fight them there.”

Government-imposed austerity contributes to social suffering and anxiety, creating fertile ground for the surge of fascism in Greece. The fight against Golden Dawn is also a fight against racism, poverty, homophobia and authoritarian rule. The anti-fascist forces here are aware of these complications. As I write, a solidarity caravan is moving across the country in support of workers’ efforts to take over their factory and put themselves back to work. An alternative economies festival is being organized. Invitations are being sent and posters distributed for a mass assembly of people to discuss how to carry their anti-fascist struggle forward. Let’s hope that their momentum builds and that they gain support.
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:04 pm

Selma James, US Assembly of Jews Confronting Racism
and Israeli Apartheid


American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:20 pm

http://intheprocessofbeing.wordpress.co ... and-again/


and again…



and again, israel attacks gaza.

and again, it strikes to kill

those who have endured

decades of children knowing

the ear-deafening sound of death,

of grandparents fighting to survive not only 1948 but

each war, attack, daily persecution

since.



and again,

and again,



and again, israel attacks gaza.

and again, it strikes to kill

palestinian resistance

for calm and quiet evenings,

for laughter uninterrupted,

for celebrations unfamiliar with death,

for the necessities that are now luxuries.



and again,

and again,



and again, israel attacks gaza.

and again it strikes to kill

the determination that carries the people

the heart that beats “liberation”

the fists that spring revolution.



but again,

but again,



but again, palestine rises

in struggle,

in power

and with

the people.
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Fri Nov 16, 2012 10:57 pm


NYPD to Racially Profile White Males


New York, NY – Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced today in a joint press conference that, following a recent study on race and “going-postal” homicides, the New York City Police Department will revamp its Stop and Frisk crime prevention policy by instructing officers to stop and frisk male Caucasians.

Stating that their main concern was, per usual, the safety of the average citizen, Mr. Bloomberg explained, “We did one of those comprehensive studies where you get data and then you look at the data? We wanted to find out who’s most likely to gun down innocent New Yorkers – besides police officers just doing their job, I mean.”

Commissioner Kelly cut in to elucidate. “We pored over decades of public homicide cases, pinpointing deranged shootings in just the last couple of years. The clear majority of perps were like that guy in Tucson who shot 18 people including Gabrielle Giffords; or that guy in Wisconsin who killed six people at that Sikh temple; or that guy in Colorado who shot up that midnight showing of Batman; or that Norwegian guy who killed 77 people, or, lest we forget, that guy here in Manhattan who shot an ex-coworker at the Empire State Building. The list goes on.“

“Using science,” Mayor Bloomberg added, “we were able to ascertain that the shooters had two things in common: they were male and they were pale.”

According to noted forensic whitemanologists, recent laboratory tests show that the hormone testosterone can undergo a pronounced chemical exacerbation in those Caucasoids who possess the XY chromosome and a relative dearth of the epidermal pigment melanin. If exposed to certain socioeconomic factors, this condition can produce a carbon-based, bilaterally symmetrical, rage-filled, dude-like organism whose desire to be King of the Universe comes into direct conflict with his inability to get a really good tan at the beach. His rage festers until the white male organism feels that there is no alternative but to buy a sunhat, get some guns, go out, and mow people down.

“We were blown away – nonviolently, of course – to learn that just about every marauding psycho in our study was badass and beige,” Mr. Bloomberg concluded. “And there we were, assuming that the danger to society was black and brown men. Was our face red.”

“Henceforth, we pledge to use our white supremacy for good,” declared Commissioner Kelly. “Also, we figure that if we start racially profiling white people, the NAACP and the NY Civil Liberties Union will finally stop dissing us.”

As the Mayor went on to repeat the entire press conference in his inimitable Spanish, Grover Boynton, a high school basketball coach who happened to attend the event, expressed concern.

“I sure hope this doesn’t mean that white folks will stop seeing African American men as threatening,” said Mr. Boynton. “White people who avoid sitting next to me on the subway or who step away from me on the street are about the only way society lets me know I exist. Yo, I better go buy me another hoodie.”

http://www.pmpress.org/content/article. ... 6112753500
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Sat Nov 17, 2012 2:27 pm

http://libcom.org/library/rebirth-radic ... me-back-30’s

The Rebirth of Radical Nationalism: Welcome back to the 30s

Image

Warsaw - The past days following the Nationalist riots of November 11, 2012 have been a time of solemn reflection for those of us in Poland and our friends watching around the world. We have awoken to a new reality, not in a hyperbolic or theoretical sense, but to a practical new reality of fascist terror on the streets of our cities, escalating exponentially. With burned out apartments, hospitalized anti-fascists, murders, mass nationalist marches through our cities, and now the formation of nationalist militias, and a call to overthrow the republic, we’re asking ourselves, just as our grandparents asked 80 years ago, ‘how could this be happening in our times?’

Historical Context

The fall of the “communist” dictatorships in the 1990’s led to a breeding ground for new political ideologies arising in former one-party states. Where once history was given to the people through Stalinist propaganda, the war over historical truth has returned, and nationalists have done everything in their power to re-envision history to their own sinister benefit. Today we see the trend all across the forgotten side of Europe. In Dresden, the nationalists organize marches to commemorate the victims of Allied bombings; In Hungary, pre-war nationalists (and Nazi allies) are glorified as the true defenders of freedom; In Ukraine, monuments are erected for the terrorist organization UPA and their leaders granted ‘national hero’ status. We are living in extremely uncertain times, and the black and white narrative offered up by the nationalists is resonating with a generation suffering the realities of the modern economy.

In Poland the nationalists have spent the last 20 years co-opting soccer fan clubs in an attempt to take-over working class culture and identity. This is a tactic we’ve seen all over Europe, and the BBC’s documentary criticizing fascist violence in Polish and Ukrainian soccer came as a shock to those outside the region considering a holiday trip to the EURO 2012 tournament. But nationalist culture and ideas are no longer just found around football stadiums, they are creeping more and more into everyday life, into mainstream media, in church sermons, even on university campuses.

The radical nationalists have traded in military garb and football club politics, for suits-and-ties and coalition building. Establishing alliances across the right, including with major media publications, they have gone from Nov. 11 marches of 300 nazi-skinheads in 2009 to 20,000 ‘patriots’ in 2012 ready to ‘overthrow the system’. But we are not only talking about propaganda and marches, we are also confronting a new era of organized and coordinated violence unseen in years. Their strategy being two-fold, to clean up the public image of extreme politics (claiming the narrative of eternal victims, ‘true patriots’ condemned by an oppressive system), while at the same time, creating a culture of violence just below the surface of their organizing. Their strategy culminating this November 11.

We have sat by in horror as gangs of nationalists terrorized Polish cities, and street fighting that accompanied the main march was simply written off by nationalists and their mass of conspiratorial sympathizers as, “provoked by undercover police.” The completely incompetent Polish media began to echo ONR’s claims, matching the long, pitiful history of ‘National victimhood’ which now seems to be the major myth of November 11. Last year’s fairytale of ‘foreign antifascists coming to fight Polish patriots and demolish Warsaw’ has been replaced by a new paranoid theory of ‘undercover police in ski-masks provoking riots in Warsaw.’ The reality remains to be recognized by the mass of society, Polish nationalist violence is spiking and Polish antifascists, immigrants, and LGBT are experiencing it firsthand.

A short summary of the coordinated Nationalist violence in 2012

The wave of violence has not only occurred in recent days, over the past year we’ve seen one murder and dozens if not hundreds of attacks around the country. Easter night in Białystok: A gang of nationalists screaming they would ‘cleanse the city of leftists and faggots’ murdered one student and stabbed several others. Stalking the streets for hours, the police failed to intervene. In Poznań, a children’s art festival hosted by the Rozbrat squat was attacked by groups of men with stones. Opole, a small Kurdish restaurant is attacked by thugs with bats and knives, police ignore repeated complaints from the workers about nationalist threats. In Piła, 2 youths beaten for hanging up posters to a punk concert by 5 men, calling them dirty faggots. In Warsaw, repeated attacks following workers solidarity demonstrations on local labor activists; Attacks on the LGBT-friendly bar “Brave New World” during nationalist marches; Threats against left-wing activists following public demonstrations. In Lublin, an attack on the cultural center Tektura Collective and weeks later on ‘Free Tibet’ demonstrators in the town square. In Sopot, a young man attacked waiting for his train home for ‘wearing colorful pants’ accused of being gay and beaten. In Wrocław, attacks on the equality march by the nationalist “March of Balaclavas”, on the CRK anarchist community center, the local synagogue, etc. A Cuban-Polish soccer player threatened and his motorcycle vandalized with the words “white power” and “KKK.” Attacks on cemeteries, synagogues, monuments, symbols of multiculturalism, cafes, social centers, squats, the list goes on, all in the last 11 months, in towns across the country. And then there is what has happened on November 11.

November 11 was a day the nationalists are triumphing as a great victory; the beginning of a new national front and the beginning of the end of the Polish republic.

The nationalist seizure of power and formation of Nationalist Militias

“We are now living in a new reality – and hardly anyone seems to realize it,” the Antifascist coalition of November 11 has declared. Besides the nationalist riots which rocked Warsaw for the evening of November 11, a range of attacks took place that day to commemorate “National Independence Day.” The Nationalists have announced a new militant strategy against democracy. ONR (Obóz Narodowo Radykalny, the National Radical Camp) and Młodzież Wszechpolska (All Polish Youth) MW, the groups responsible for organizing the march through Warsaw have now officially united and subsequently called for the overthrow of the Republic and the formation of paramilitary groups into a so-called “National Guard.” The call sounds strikingly similar to Hitler’s Brownshirts who patrolled German cities and broke opposition groups in the 1920’s and 30’s. Mussolini had similar backing with his “Blackshirts” who took over Rome marching street by street routing political enemies. This is the reality we are talking about, fascist militias coming to a town near you.

We will see how this call is heeded by the Brownshirts of ONR and MW, but if November 11 is any indication, they’re already here. In Wrocław on Sunday night, directly following the “Patriots March” a group of one hundred men forcibly entered the Wagenburg social center and began severely beating people into unconsciousness then fleeing the scene. One man was rushed to the hospital just escaping death, he is currently in critical but stable condition following a number of operations. Cars, houses, and the building itself were also smashed and destroyed. On Facebook, the leader of NOP (another major nationalist organization) congratulated the attackers and cheered for more. The four men arrested following the attack have since been released without charges. In Białystok, the apartment of a Chechen family was firebombed. Also in Białystok, the mayor has now openly said he would like to lobby for ONR. In Warsaw the offices of non-profits were attacked, including those of Lambda as well as attacks on individuals around the city and mass media outlets. In Wieluń a cemetery was vandalized with ONR graffiti. In Ostrołęka, tombs of unknown Russian soldiers were destroyed. These are just some of the attacks we are aware of thus far.

This is an obvious campaign of terror across the country, and we are seeing similar campaigns organized in neighboring countries by neo-fascist groups, some of whom attended Sunday’s March in Warsaw, including Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, and Norwegian nationalists. We remember that Anders Breivik, the nationalist who terrorized Oslo in 2011 killing 77 people, cited Polish nationalists as a great “inspiration.”

Apathetic Public, Incompetent Police

With a wave of violence and calls for the overthrow of the government, you may ask yourself where is Polish society and the state in all of this? As mentioned above, it seems as if history is indeed repeating itself. As had happened in pre-Fascist Italy and Spain, the state is arming itself not to protect against a fascist revolution, but repressing left-wing, anarchist, and antifascist organizations that pose more of a threat to economic peace than any fascist takeover could. Furthermore, a culture of apathy and silence has been built in a society which is struggling more to deal with the questions of poverty and identity than the question of Politics. In a system that creates a surplus population of disillusioned poor, it’s no wonder the state would rather see them fighting for the nation instead of fighting for justice. A measurement of just how little the Polish police and government understand of what is happening can be seen by their approach to November 11: harassing antifascists this past week asking ‘if people were planning on any fighting for November 11?’ Of course the antifascist march passed through Warsaw without a hint of violence, while riots raged through the city center in a nationalist show of force, and yet the police spotlight remains against antifascist activists.

And the media? Nationalist and populist ideas are abound in mainstream discourse, ONR has capitalized on the medias uncritical approach to propagate their rhetoric. Even the president, in a populist photo-op, was seen laying wreaths this Independence Day to the Nationalist icon Roman Dmowski. Civil organizations are now open allies with ONR and MW due in large part to the lack of media scrutiny of them or their extreme politics. And any press that does take an active role in criticism? Labeled communist, elitist or Jewish, and attacked in a right-wing media boycott, “I won’t read, I won’t watch.”

And so with all sides covered, it looks to be open season for a new nationalism to spring forth from the ashes of the failed economic experiments of post-communism. The Nationalists are claiming to have the “third road” neither communist nor capitalist, but as they will find, it will be a road riddled with antifascist blockades.

How much longer can we tolerate the growing threat of a nationalist revolution? With nationalist propaganda thriving, and the clever ‘coalition building’ paying off, the shadow of fascism is steadily creeping over this country. As we have seen in the past 2 years the nationalists “third road” will be one paved in our blood. We cannot wait any longer. It’s now or never.

For the memory of our grandparents who liberated the death camps and brought the fascist monster to it’s knees. Let us never again return to that place! No compromise in the struggle against modern fascism ¡No pasarán!
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Sun Nov 18, 2012 12:44 pm

Image

Gaza is not the most beautiful city.

Its shore is not bluer than the shores of Arab cities.

Its oranges are not the most beautiful in the Mediterranean basin.

Gaza is not the richest city.It is not the most elegant or the biggest, but it equals the history of an entire homeland

Because it is more ugly, impoverished, miserable, and vicious in the eyes of enemies.

Because it is the most capable, among us, of disturbing the enemy’s mood and his comfort,

Because it is his nightmare,

Because it is mined oranges, children without a childhood, old men without old age,

And women without desires,

Because of all this it is the most beautiful, the purest and richest among us

And the one most worthy of love…


— Mahmoud Darwish, excerpt from ‘Silence for Gaza‘
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Mon Nov 19, 2012 3:08 pm

http://monthlyreview.org/2012/11/01/que ... -abolition

Queer Liberation Means Prison Abolition

Victoria Law

Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock, Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 240 pages, $27.95, hardcover.

In 1513, en route to Panama, Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa ordered forty Quaraca men to be ripped apart by his hunting dogs. Their offense? Being “dressed as women” and having sexual relations with each other. The homophobia and transphobia behind Balboa’s actions are far from arcane relics of the past, and violence against LGBTQ people continues to this day, both legally sanctioned and in the streets.

In 2008, Duanna Johnson, a black transgender woman, was arrested for a prostitution-related offense in Memphis. At the jail, she was brutally beaten by a police officer. Her beating was caught on videotape, leading to the firing of two officers. Johnson filed a civil suit against the police department but, less than six months later, was found shot in the head a few blocks from her house. This was the third killing of a black transgender woman in Memphis in 2008 alone, and her murder remains unsolved.

Queer (In)Justice examines the violence that LGBTQ people face regularly, from attacks on the street to institutionalized violence from police and prisons. The three authors are long-time advocates and attorneys who work directly with people impacted by incarceration. Joey L. Mogul, a partner at Chicago’s People’s Law Office and Director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University, has advocated for LGBTQ people ensnared in the criminal legal system. Andrea Ritchie is a police misconduct attorney, organizer, and coordinator of Streetwise and Safe, a New York City organization focused on gender, race, sexuality, and poverty-based policing and criminalization of LGBTQ youth of color. Kay Whitlock has worked for almost forty years to build bridges between LGBTQ struggles and movements fighting for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. Together, they center race, class, and gender/gender nonconformity in analyzing the myriad ways in which LGBTQ people have been policed, prosecuted, and punished from colonial times to the present day.

Criminalizing archetypes of LGBTQ people routinely inform policing, judgment, punishment, responses to violence against queers, and perceptions of queer people in general. These archetypes include: the perception of queers as mentally unstable, the assertion that LGBTQ are constantly trying to “lure” heterosexuals into gender transgression, and the misleading notion that violence is an inherent part of queers’ personality. According to these archetypes, serial killers John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Aileen Wuornos killed because they were gay. “Of course,” the authors say, “no such equivalence is suggested in the case of white heterosexual men who kill.” Thus, heterosexual murderers like Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway are not seen as being driven by an innate, heterosexual murderous nature.

Race, class, and/or gender non-conformity are used by these archetypes to heighten fears, as demonstrated by the media frenzy against the New Jersey Four in 2006. Seven young black lesbians were accosted by Dwayne Buckle; when they refused his advances, he threatened to “fuck them straight,” choked them, ripped hair from their scalps, and spat on them. The women defended themselves and were assisted by two male onlookers. During the struggle, Buckle was stabbed. The women were arrested and charged with attempted murder by the police. That they were black, working class, and gender nonconforming made the women ideal targets for both the media and the prosecution who framed them as a “lesbian wolf pack.” Police refused to credit their statements, those of other witnesses, and ultimately the testimony of Buckle himself (who said that the two unknown men were the ones responsible for stabbing him). Three of the seven accepted plea bargains; the remaining four women received sentences ranging from three-and-a-half to eleven years in prison.

The policing and prison systems are, of course, not the only source of anti-gay violence. The authors note, “While the use of these archetypal narratives by the machinery of the state is often grotesque, their chronic, low-grade presence in daily conversation about crime, safety and justice for queer people is no less deadly.” For the New Jersey Four, what should have been a fun night out in the West Village became fraught with violence from both an individual stranger on the street as well as the police and prison system.

Queer (In)Justice acknowledges that deep-seated prejudices and fears of queer people cannot be dismantled via hate crime legislation. The authors say that “many of the individuals who engage in such violence are encouraged to do so by mainstream society through promotion of laws, practices, generally accepted prejudices, and religious views,” and they note that homophobic and transphobic violence generally increases during highly visible, right-wing political attacks. For example, in 2007, as the state’s attorney general was concluding a three-year campaign against domestic partnership, Michigan saw the largest increase (207%) in anti-LGBTQ violence reported to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (a national network of organizations that provide services to and advocate on behalf of queer people). Even hate-crime legislation, while allowing for enhanced criminal penalties, does nothing to dismantle the anti-gay politicking and preaching that encourages violence.

But even if queer people and communities recognize the policing and prison systems as perpetrators of violence, how can they keep safe? Noting that “there are no easy, one-size-fits-all answers to the question of how best to move forward—and no single vision of what change could ultimately look like,” the book offers examples of community organizing against homophobic- and transphobic-rooted violence that do not rely on further policing or punishment-based legislation.

In San Francisco, Community United Against Violence and the Bay Area Police Watch Project partnered to form TransAction. This group not only organizes against police abuse of trans people, but also builds an analysis of the policing of gender and sexual nonconformity among anti-police brutality activists who do not normally work around queer issues. They have also allied with communities of color struggling against race-based policing.

In Chicago’s Uptown, Queer to the Left (Q2L)—a multiracial, grassroots group of LGBTQ people—joined neighborhood groups campaigning against increasing police misconduct that accompanied the gentrification of the neighborhood. Highlighting and countering the systemic changes in zoning laws, lending patterns, and housing markets that force existing residents out, they advocate for building low-income housing in the area. They also challenge calls for intensified policing of youth of color in the area by the more affluent incoming residents, both queer and straight.

Queer (In)Justice is an important book both for LGBTQ people and their allies, as well as activists organizing against policing and prisons. It fills the gap in existing literature about how and why the police and prison systems repress LGBTQ people, particularly those further marginalized by race, class, and/or gender nonconformity. By tracing the history of how LGBTQ people have been criminalized and punished up to current-day policing and imprisonment policies, it also adds queer voices and experiences to the discussions and existing literature about policing and prisons. (Two more-recent books have further developed this: Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison-Industrial Complex, edited by Eric Stanley and Nat Smith; and Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, by Dean Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project).

Recognizing the intersection between these two issues is crucial to moving both struggles forward. Queer (In)Justice is not only an educational text, but a call to arms. As the authors state in the introduction: “Ultimately, regardless of our intentions, all of us are accountable for the roles we play in reinforcing or dismantling the violence endemic to policing and punishment systems. This book is an invitation—not only to LGBT people but to all people concerned about social and economic justice—to accept that responsibility.”

Victoria Law is a writer, photographer, and mother. She is the author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles Of Incarcerated Women (PM Press, 2012) and co-editor of Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities (PM Press, 2012).
American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: Economic Aspects of "Love"

Postby American Dream » Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:31 pm

American Dream
 
Posts: 19946
Joined: Sat Sep 15, 2007 4:56 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to Data & Research Compilations

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests